Is AI The New Recipe for Mediocrity?
By Chidiebere Sullivan Nwuguru
Recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a major trend, breaking into various industries and enjoying huge acceptance from the various sectors of our society. Having a technological breakthrough such as Artificial Intelligence that aims to replicate human intelligence and capabilities, while doing things that would have required manual efforts, in a very short while, and even better sometimes, is something very fascinating that one would not help but understand clearly why it has grown to become a major trend currently. But the big question that begs for an answer is whether AI in the real sense is here to actually replace human power or something that will along the line exacerbate mediocrity.
Although the fact that Artificial Intelligence has recently enhanced the applicability and accessibility of technology in various sectors of human endeavours, we must understand that the performances of AI are based on the programming algorithms it was trained on, and this hinges its performances on the emphasis built around logic and efficiency which lacks creativity and originality that the human mind is capable of. Thus, Artificial Intelligence is innately imitative, and can't think independently for itself beyond the simulations from the algorithms it was built upon. Hence, whereas AI can offer novel results, it can not generate these solutions by thinking outside of the box, and therefore, is always very predictable and mediocre.
As much as AI can be very reliable in accomplishing tasks that could have ordinarily been time-consuming, especially when given the right prompts, I must emphasise the fact that its overreliance can potentially diminish creativity and cause one's work to look the same over again. This scenario is capable of denying one a chance to be innovative in their approach to proffering solutions to problems. Advisably, every organisation that intends to breed creativity alongside its problem-solving strategies should not rely heavily on AI to carry out its tasks, or else its approach will be very predictable.
Also, an organisation that wishes to incorporate AI into its business should ensure that the workers don't end up relying too much on it, as this is capable of breeding mediocrity in the workplace, and causing them to halt the development of essential skills like problem-solving and critical thinking. The incorporation of AI in the workplace should be done in a manner that complements workers instead of replacing them. Recently, one of the most talked about topics was “AI replacing human power in the near future”, but the truth remains that unless we are going to normalise mediocrity, we will always require creativity and originality which are some of the advantages the human mind has over AI, or probably if we finally get to a point where we can get the computer to think independently and beyond the algorithm it was built on, else we will always need human assistance to get AI to deliver optimally. This, therefore, brings us to the conclusion that for now, AI is not here to replace humans but rather to complement us. Hence, to avoid mediocrity, we must incorporate AI in a way that does not limit our ability to think. Of course, letting AI do way too much for us, including thinking, is synonymous with breeding mediocrity.
Conclusively, while it's very advisable to incorporate AI in our dealings, we should endeavour to prompt it rightly and ensure it is only there to complement our essential skills such as being creative with our thoughts. Hence, to avoid mediocrity that may arise from the inability of AI to be creative and original, we must not replace outrightly the human inputs but rather supplement them.
